Padre Pio: Witness for the Defense of Wounded Souls

Padre Pio and Maximilian Kolbe, the Patron Saints behind These Stone Walls, have an obscure thread of connection that magnifies witness, sacrifice, and fatherhood.

There was an eerie sense about us as Pornchai Maximilian Moontri and I walked around the concrete prison yard at 0500 on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary. There was not yet any sign of the dawn, nor was there any moon in the sky. If there were stars, we were blinded to them by the blazing prison lights reflected from the high walls that surrounded us. I asked Pornchai to take a long last look at these walls, for he was about to enter the final stretch of his long road to freedom.

Just then, a sliver of bright light emerged above the building where we have lived in a 60-square-foot cell for the last three of our years in prison — 28 for Pornchai and 26 for me. We stood still to watch as the bright half-moon arose above all the walls. I told Pornchai that he will gaze upon the same moon in Thailand that I will see from this very spot. There was a long silence as he considered this, and then it was followed by tears. I had been putting a brave face on things up to this point, but I could no longer contain it.

It is difficult for men to talk and sob at the same time. I do not suggest that women cry more than men. Perhaps men do not cry enough. It is just that there was so much to say, and so I choked back the tears until another time. If you have been reading These Stone Walls for any length of time, then you understand what was transpiring that morning. It was expressed best by Pornchai himself in a recent guest post, “Hope and Prayers for My Friend Left Behind.”

Soon after, we had to end that walk, after fourteen years sharing and building faith, conversion and redemption in a tiny prison cell, Pornchai was taken away and we will never see each other again in this life.

Backing up a little, it was Pornchai who brought up the most urgent and necessary part of our conversation that morning. It goes back to one of the first conversations we ever had about Pornchai’s faith experience. It was back in 2006 just before we were moved into the same cell. He described this in his post above. He walked into my cell, saw an image of St. Maximilian Kolbe on the mirror, and asked, “Is this you?” He described that as one of the most important questions of his life.

Fourteen years later, as we walked in the pre-dawn light of a half moon, he said through tears, “Now I have the answer. You have saved me, but no one is saving you.” We talked a lot about our patron saint, of the mystery of how he came into our lives, and of what his witness means for us. Maximilian went to prison because he was writing the truth. I went to prison on trumped up charges, and have been writing the truth ever since. I told Pornchai that he is a very important and powerful part of that truth. I said that no matter what happens to me now, “you are a living witness to the truth that no past is lived at the expense of the present, that no wounds can prevent a soul in search of God from emerging above prison walls.”

The Wounds of Padre Pio

At this writing, Pornchai is now in a tomb of solitary confinement, with no ability to communicate with the outside world. I can support him only with my prayers, but this should only last a few days. By the time you are reading this, he will have already emerged from that to enter another purgatory: ICE detention awaiting deportation. This is probably the most disorganized, haphazard, inhumane and one-size-fits-all thing that the American government bureaucracy does. But we have a team of advocates working to make this stay as brief as possible. They are in touch with me every day.

The Thai consulate will — hopefully soon — arrange a repatriation flight for Pornchai to return to his native land after a 36-year absence. Under ICE rules, he is allowed to have nothing but the clothes he is wearing. We had the foresight to pack a box of his treasured few possessions — a handmade rosary sent to him by TSW, reader Kathleen Riney, a Saint Maximilian medal, some photographs, and a set of Divine Mercy books by Father Michael Gaitley and others. These include Loved, Lost, Found by Felix Carroll which features a chapter about Pornchai’s life. The box is on its way to Thailand and may arrive ahead of him.

When Pornchai himself arrives in Bangkok, he will have a final 14-day stay in solitary confinement, but it will not be in a cell. The Thai government requires a 14-day quarantine period in a Bangkok hotel. Pornchai will not be allowed to leave his hotel room for the 14 days, but it will be unlike all previous experiences of solitary confinement.

[Editor’s note: You can see the solitary confinement unit that held Pornchai decades ago at wgbh.org/frontline/solitarynation. Pornchai knows many of the solitary confinement prisoners in this documentary about his first prison in Maine. If you haven’t seen this, you can’t begin to know what Pornchai has been through. It’s traumatic just to watch it. It’s the video right at the top of that link.]

One of our friends in Thailand will drop off a Samsung smart phone for Pornchai’s use so he and I can communicate. After 28 years in prison, he has never seen a smart phone. His first assignment is to learn how to answer the phone.

His second assignment will be to learn how to use the phone to read the post that you are reading right now. I want him to see what followed our painful discussion on the morning he left in tears — and left me in tears as well. I want him to ponder the mystery of the other patron saint who insinuated himself behind These Stone Walls with us. I want him to ponder the graces imparted to us by Saint Padre Pio who bore the wounds of Christ for fifty years.

I have been aware of Padre Pio for most of my life. As the young Capuchin studying (aka, misled by) pop psychology in the 1970s, a story I told in “Prison Journal: A Midsummer Night’s Midlife Crisis,” I am ashamed to write that I once denounced Padre Pio’s wounds as psychosomatic. I hope he forgives me for my ignorance back when I knew everything. I knew a lot about Padre Pio back then, but I did not know Padre Pio. Now I do. Pornchai knows him as well. He came to us behind These Stone Walls in a personal and powerful way.

I had already been in prison on false witness for four years back in 1998. I had, for all of those years, been living in a horrible situation with eight men in each prison cell designed for only four. To “honor” Catholics’ reverence for Padre Pio then — six years before he was canonized by Saint John Paul II in 2002 — The New York Times ran an article alleging that Padre Pio was the subject of twelve Vatican investigations in his lifetime. The unjust and inflammatory article alleged that “Padre Pio had sex with female penitents twice a week.”

This was the first inkling I ever had that Padre Pio suffered more than the visible wounds of Christ. He also suffered wounds upon his name, his integrity, his priesthood. Here we were, thirty years to the day since his death, and the “Scandal Sheet of Record” was still repeating an unfounded story for the sole purpose of deflating the faith of Catholics who reverenced him. It resonated with me in a most personal way.

Seven years passed. In April, 2005, a newspaper of integrity, The Wall Street Journal, published a two-part account of false witness, wrongful prosecution and public hysteria entitled, “A Priest’s Story” by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Dorothy Rabinowitz. The article was read all over the world. As a result of it, Bill Donohue at the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights asked me to submit an article about my own awareness of false witness. My article was published in the November 2005 issue of Catalyst under the title, “Sex Abuse and Signs of Fraud.”

I was surprised to see that I shared the cover of that issue of Catalyst with a story about how Padre Pio was similarly defamed throughout his life and even after death. None of it was ever substantiated nor was it supported by evidence in any form. On the contrary, many witnesses had testified in Vatican investigations that the detractors were themselves discredited beyond any doubt. That did not stop The New York Times from slander.

The Echoes of a Special Blessing

Among the readers of the WSJ series on my trial’s perversion of justice was Pierre Matthews, a Belgian with dual American citizenship who at the time was living in Chicago. The articles were his first realization — as they were for many — that the whole truth about the nature of Catholic scandal had not been told by the mainstream media. Pierre wrote to me. Months later, on a return trip from Belgium, he diverted his flight itinerary for a stop in Boston from where he drove up to Concord, NH to visit me in prison.

Later in 2005, Pornchai Moontri — who had spent the previous seven years in solitary confinement in Maine — was transferred to the Concord, NH prison where we met. In 2006 we became friends. In 2007 we became roommates. In 2010, on Divine Mercy Sunday, Pornchai renounced his troubled past to become Catholic. Later, in September 2010, I wrote “Saints Alive! Padre Pio and the Stigmata: Sanctity on Trial.”

That post told an amazing story. In an earlier visit with Pierre Matthews, I told him about Pornchai, about how our long and winding roads converged, and about Pornchai’s decision to renounce his past and become Catholic. Pierre told me a remarkable story. He said that when he was growing up in Belgium, his father sent him to a boarding school. In the 1950s, at just about the time I was born, Pierre’s school sponsored a trip to Italy. Pierre’s father wrote to him saying that his trip will take him near a place called San Giovanni Rotondo where there is a very famous priest and mystic who bears the wounds of Christ.

Pierre’s father instructed his skeptical 16-year-old son to take a train to San Giovanni Rotondo and ask to see Padre Pio. Being 16, Pierre did not want to go. But his father was insistent so Pierre read his Father’s account of Padre Pio’s mystical fame that was at the time being suppressed by the Church, but rising up from the sensus fidelium — the sense of the faithful.

When Pierre Matthews learned that Pornchai was to become Catholic, he sent me a registered letter asking — no, insisting — that he be permitted to become Pornchai’s Godfather. Pierre asked me to submit a special request to the prison warden asking approval for Pierre to fly over from Belgium to visit both me and Pornchai. In all the years that I had been here, such a thing was never allowed. No visitor can visit two prisoners at the same time. So I submitted the request with the intent of sending the denial back to Pierre. To my shock, the request came back with a single word: “approved.”

During the special visit, Pierre told us that he indeed took a train to San Giovanni Rotondo at age 16 over a half century earlier. He said he rang the monastery doorbell and asked a friar if he could see Padre Pio. “Impossible” came the curt reply. Pierre explained that his father had sent him from Belgium so the friar invited him inside to be given a prayer card to show his father that he was there. When he stepped inside to be given the card, a strange man in a Capuchin habit, with hands heavily bandaged, was just then walking down the stairs. His eyes were fixed upon Pierre, Padre Pio approached Pierre, placed his bandaged hands upon his head, and blessed him.

Visiting us 55 years later, Pierre said that he knows this blessing was meant for us. He spoke of the long, winding journey from faith that led to his learning about me, then about Pornchai, and then, when These Stone Walls began in 2009, it was what drew Pierre back to faith. It was then, in 2010, that I added Saint Padre Pio as one of the Patron Saints of These Stone Walls. Through Pornchai’s Godfather, Padre Pio shared his wounds with us and became a witness for the defense against our own wounds. It was Pierre who first noted that I was condemned to prison on September 23, 1994, the Feast of Saint Padre Pio.

Among the many letters of Padre Pio to the thousands of pilgrims and penitents who wrote to him, was one dated in the year before his death on September 23, 1968. In that letter, Padre Pio advised a suffering soul to enroll in the Knights at the Foot of the Cross, a spiritual mission founded by Father Maximilian Kolbe for the offering of life’s wounds as a share in the suffering of Christ. I was amazed to read that Padre Pio had such an awareness of our other patron saint two decades before St. Maximilian was canonized. Pornchai and I are both members of the Militia Immaculata and the Knights at the Foot of the Cross.

Our beloved friend Pierre, Pornchai’s Godfather, passed away in Belgium on July 7 this year. Pornchai and I were blessed to be able to talk with him by telephone in the weeks before his death. He never took redemption for granted, but I know with the certainty of faith that he and Padre Pio have renewed their bond.

So Pornchai, my son, if you are reading this then you must know that there is much more to our life’s wounds than the prison walls that surrounded us and surround me still. To be free of them is not just a matter of the body, but of the heart and soul. So be free. Be free enough to convey to others the great gifts imparted to us by these patron saints. You will no longer have a guest post at These Stone Walls. You will now be a partner in mission, writing from Divine Mercy Thailand about how God is inspiring hearts and souls through the transfiguration of your wounds.

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Saints Maximilian Kolbe and Padre Pio were both canonized by Saint John Paul II.

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My Visit with Pornchai Maximilian Moontri by Claire Dion

Claire Dion, a contributing writer for Beyond These Stone Walls, interviewed Pornchai “Max” Moontri at the New Hampshire State Prison for a tale of hope and amazing grace.

Preface by Father Gordon MacRae

The following is a guest post by Mrs. Claire Dion, a reader of Beyond These Stone Walls in Bridgton, Maine. Claire graced these pages with a Corporal Work of Mercy that touched our hearts in 2017. After two years with us, our friend, Kewei Chen from Shanghai, China, was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to await his deportation.

After reading of the unique circumstances that brought Chen from China to an American prison, and the pain of our parting as well as our hopes for Chen, Claire drove from her home in Maine to meet with him at the place where he was awaiting deportation. The result of that visit became her first guest post on Beyond These Stone Walls, “My Visit with Kewei Chen in ICE Detention.”

Her post was comforting. From my perspective, and that of Pornchai Moontri who had become Chen’s older brother, the void in our hearts could not be filled, but Claire’s guest post left it not quite so empty. It ended with a wonderful photograph of Chen emailed from the Shanghai airport as he saw his parents for the first time after his unplanned three-year absence.

More recently, Claire asked if she could visit me and Pornchai, a much further winter drive for her. Since prison rules allow for being on the visitor list of only one prisoner, I asked her to visit Pornchai, to treat it as an interview, and to write another guest post for Beyond These Stone Walls.

I did this because, as I have hinted in some previous posts, there is a very special story coming, one that I know will both break your hearts and then mend them again with evidence of the immense power of Divine Mercy to restore the human soul. This story is coming when I am able to fully tell it, and it will be unlike anything you have ever read before on Beyond These Stone Walls.

So as a prelude, I want to present Pornchai “Max” Moontri through the eyes of a reader meeting our friend for the first time. His story should begin, after all, not upon the dung heap of Job where life took him, but at the point to which Divine Mercy has redeemed him out of darkness into a very great light.

Claire Dion is a wife and mother of five adult daughters and a devoted grandmother. She is currently retired from a career as a registered nurse in obstetrics at Lynn, Massachusetts General Hospital. She today lives in Bridgton, Maine where she has been part of the Faith Formation Team at Saint Joseph Parish and a follower of Father Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Morning Glory and Marian Consecration. It’s an honor to present Claire Dion.

Saturday – January 8, 2018 at 8:00 AM

I pulled into the parking lot of the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord. I will be meeting Pornchai Moontri, a man I have come to know and love from reading Beyond These Stone Walls. Walking into the visiting area where I have to sign in, I feel a little uneasy. I did not have a clue what I was to do and I had not slept the night before as I was afraid I would do something wrong and the visit would be canceled.

Everything went well until I passed through a metal detector and the alarms went off. What was I thinking? I should have realized that two knee replacements and a hip replacement might present a problem. After being sent back to the waiting room with alarm bells ringing, some guards questioned me, and then led me into the visiting room. It was a large room with metal tables and chairs screwed to the floor. Each table was numbered, and I was instructed to go to table number twenty-four.

From a distance I saw Pornchai walk into the visiting room. I realized that he had not seen me before, but I recognized him from Beyond These Stone Walls. So I waved and smiled, and he smiled back. When he got to the table, I asked him if I could give him the allowed “three-second hug.” He laughed while I hugged this man whom I had only read about but was very anxious to meet.

While I was waiting for Pornchai to arrive, I wondered how we were going to fill in a two-hour visit. I was not allowed to bring anything with me so I had no notes to help me remember what I wanted to talk to him about and all the questions I had. I knew that Father Gordon wanted me to write about this visit for Beyond These Stone Walls.

We sat next to each other at the table in a room filled with cameras. The large room was also full of visitors, and, as many of them were children visiting their fathers on a Saturday morning, it was noisy. It took only seconds for us to relax and start talking. From the moment we sat down, I had a sense that I already knew this very special person.

We continued to talk nonstop for the entire two hours. We both felt that it was amazing that we were sitting here together, Pornchai from Thailand and me from Lynn, Massachusetts (which, by the way, is the city just North of Boston where Father Gordon grew up).

Soon we were talking about Pornchai’s incredible journey from a village in Northeast Thailand to Bangor, Maine and ending at the New Hampshire State Prison. I learned that Pornchai was abandoned by his mother at age two and that a teenage relative found him and brought him to live with his family.

Nine years later, when Pornchai was age eleven, his mother returned to Thailand. He did not recognize or even remember her, but against Pornchai’s will he was taken from Thailand and brought to America. A series of traumatic events broke his heart and his soul. That is another story that hopefully Father Gordon will be telling soon at Beyond These Stone Walls.

When Pornchai was fourteen years old, he ran away. He became — though not by choice — a homeless child living on the streets for the second time in his young life, and he spoke little English. While still a teen, he was involved in a struggle that resulted in the death of another man, and he was sent to prison.

While listening to his story, my heart ached as I could see and feel his pain over these events from so long ago. Sentenced to 45 years in a Maine prison, Pornchai continued to have outbursts of anger and rage which landed him in solitary confinement for many years in Maine’s “supermax” prison. [Note: PBS Frontline did a gripping story on that very place and time.]

Pornchai told me that his only plan for life was to never leave prison. It sounded as though he knew he was going to die there, and that was what he wanted. It was his “Plan B” for his life. However, God had other plans for Pornchai Moontri. Fourteen years later, he was moved to a prison in New Hampshire for the rest of his sentence, and Father Gordon MacRae stepped into the story of his life.

Here Pornchai’s eyes and expression softened as he spoke about meeting Father Gordon whom he and other prisoners call “G.” At this point, Pornchai said he felt completely alone, still angry and trusting no one. Another prisoner, a young man from Indonesia, introduced him to a man called “G” and said that G helped him a lot and that he trusted G.

Pornchai watched how G in a caring and patient way helped others and how they trusted him. In his life, the very idea of trust was entirely new. Slowly and cautiously, Pornchai let G into his life and a friendship began.

We talked for awhile about G and I learned that no matter what happens in prison G stays calm. He is a humble, steady person in the midst of the constant turmoil and darkness of prison life, and is always available to any prisoner who comes to him. With a chuckle, I have to add here that I remember Chen telling me that G is a very good man “but you don’t bother him when he is typing a BTSW post!”

“When I Was in Prison, You Came to Me” —Matthew 25:36

It was quite awhile before Pornchai found out that G is a Catholic priest. We spoke about how Father Gordon’s strong faith impressed Pornchai even though many in the Church had abandoned him. Pornchai told me that G’s faith shines in prison, and has attracted some of the prisoners to join him at Sunday Mass and in retreats sponsored by Father Michael Gaitley and the Marians of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.

Pornchai also said that Father Gordon constantly reaches out to those he feels he can help, and Pornchai was one of them. It was during this conversation that I asked Pornchai to tell Father Gordon how much I love, respect and honor his priesthood.

Through him, Christ’s presence is being felt there, and it is making a difference for many behind those stone walls and many of us BTSW readers.

As their friendship grew, Father Gordon told Pornchai that he must start taking positive steps with his life. He encouraged Pornchai to leave aside “Plan B” and plan instead for a future.

Pornchai began taking education courses, spending his days in school instead of in a cell. He proudly told me that he earned his high school diploma in prison and was Valedictorian of his 2012 graduating class. I listened and learned that his educational journey was just beginning. With Father G’s help, he then enrolled in courses in social work and psychology at Stratford Career Institute earning academic certificates “with highest honors.” This was followed by studies through a scholarship at Catholic Distance University where he took courses in theology with a straight “A” average.

What Pornchai has accomplished is nothing short of amazing given that he learned English in prison. He and “Father G” encourage other prisoners to become educated, and Pornchai now spends time mentoring and tutoring them, especially in mathematics in which he excels. He also spends his days in the woodworking and Hobby Craft shop where he teaches safety training to other prisoners on the use of carpentry tools and machines.

Pornchai designs and builds handcrafted model ships, beautiful Divine Mercy keepsake boxes, and other creations in wood. Some of these are made as gifts and some are sold in a store near the prison grounds. Pornchai used the proceeds to pay for his education courses. Father Gordon later told me that Pornchai is modest about his great skill in woodworking. One of his ships is on display in Belgium where a curator posted a brass plaque indicating that it was designed and created by “Master Craftsman Pornchai Moontri, Concord, New Hampshire.”

Divine Mercy Conversion

As Pornchai’s friendship with Father Gordon deepened, and Pornchai was influenced by his patient practice of faith, he made a decision to become a Catholic. Seeing in the many comments how much Father Gordon’s posts spiritually affect BTSW readers, we talked about how becoming Catholic has helped Pornchai in prison. He received the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation on April 10, 2010. He chose “Maximilian” as his Christian name to honor St Maximilian Kolbe.

On the next day, he received his First Eucharist from Bishop John McCormack. When this was first being planned, neither Pornchai nor Father Gordon realized the date was Divine Mercy Sunday. On that day, Jesus showered Pornchai with His love and mercy and Pornchai felt it. He said that before he became a Catholic he was always feeling unloved and alone. Now he could feel that God was with him and loved him. He also spoke about his love for the Blessed Mother. As he told me this, there was a sense of peace within him.

When I asked Pornchai what he would like me to tell BTSW readers, he became very serious. He said that he and Father Gordon are deeply impacted by the support they receive and that BTSW could not exist without it. They deeply appreciate the love, prayers, and encouragement they receive from readers all over the world. He kept going back to the BTSW readers and how important they are to both of them. He spoke of how he has done nothing to earn this outpouring of love.

Pornchai spoke about the lawyer who has helped him and Chen so much, Clare Farr in Western Australia, and how she learned of him through BTSW. He spoke of Suzanne Sadler, BTSW’s Australian-based webmaster and publisher. He spoke of Father George David Byers who helps ready Father G’s posts for publishing. He spoke of Mrs. LaVern West who prints and mails him the BTSW comments.

Pornchai also said that Father Gordon corresponds with Father Andrew Pinsent, a scientist at Oxford University who has cited his science writings. I mentioned that Father Gordon’s science posts are over my head and Pornchai said with a smile, “Mine too!” In an astonishing connection that Father Gordon later told me about, Father Georges Lemaître, the priest-physicist considered in science to be “Father of The Big Bang and Modern Cosmology,” was a close family friend of Mr. Pierre Matthews in Belgium who today is Pornchai Moontri’s Godfather.

And Pornchai also spoke of Charlene Duline who helps Father G communicate with readers, and is Pornchai’s Godmother. She once sent him a letter in which she called him “precious,” and then other prisoners teased him about it, but he laughed and said that they are jealous because no one calls them precious.

Suddenly the lights in the room flashed on and off. Our visit was over, but not before we were able to have a photograph taken together. With a hug (three seconds only) we said goodbye. I was truly blessed to meet this amazing young man, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, and to see Father Gordon through his eyes. I know I will visit him again.

On the coldest day of winter, I left the New Hampshire State Prison with summer in my heart.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae:

I thank Claire Dion for this snapshot into our lives. In my recent post, “The Days of Our Lives,” I wrote that Pornchai Moontri and our friend, J.J. Jennings work together in the woodworking and Hobby Craft center. The photos below are of their latest project, a Jewelry Cabinet.

The design for a cabinet of this size was by J.J. Jennings, who collaborated with Pornchai Moontri for the highly skilled construction. The one on the right was made by J.J. and the one on the left by Pornchai. The woods for both are solid maple and black walnut. The drawer fronts are maple or black walnut with poplar sides and bottoms. The drawers and side cabinetry doors are lined with velour.

These beautiful pieces are 20” high, 14” width, and 8.5” depth, and are customized with wood-burned or painted designs and brass fittings. The top is hinged with a 2.5”-deep display area. Two of the drawers are for rings and the other drawers are deeper. The intricate side cabinets are for hanging jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, and rosaries. Other photos of their work can be seen on the Pinterest Board, “Woodworking and Model Shipbuilding by Pornchai Moontri.”